The present invention relates to a document processing unit for managing documents to which comments can be added and in particular to a document processing unit for enabling collective seeing of comments added separately by different persons to document copies containing the same text part.
A conventional portable information processing unit is provided with a tag function for adding tag information to a desired position on a proper page in an electronic document file operated in the unit for efficient retrieval according to the tag information, for example, as described in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication Nos. Hei 5-40594 and 5-282254.
An electronic filing system in related art gives a tag pattern to retrieved information for temporary storage to facilitate later retrieval from the temporary storage, as described in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No.Hei 4-336672.
Usually, in business places and offices, more than one document copy containing the same text part is made and distributed to the persons concerned for requesting them to add any comments, then the document copies to which comments are added are collected and a report is prepared or some decision is made with reference to the comments. It is convenient to collect and see the comments on the same page or place of the document. However, to do so, the comments need to be sorted out from the document copies; the job imposes a heavy burden on the operator.
Prior art for lightening the burden imposed on the operator is not found. The tag information adding techniques provided by the conventional portable information processing unit and electronic filing system are not intended for any application handling document copies which are the same in text part and differ only in tag information; they are not useful for application in which more than one document copy containing the same text part is made and distributed to the persons concerned for requesting them to add any comments, then the document copies to which comments are added are collected and sorted out for collective seeing of the comments.